By Maayan Lubell
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Hostages held in Gaza were subjected to torture, including sexual and psychological abuse, starvation, burns and medical neglect, according to a new report by the Israeli Health Ministry that will be submitted to the United Nations this week.
The report is based on interviews with the medical and welfare teams which treated more than 100 Israeli and foreign hostages, most of whom were released in late November 2023, in a brief truce between Israel and Hamas. Eight hostages were rescued by the Israeli military.
The hostages include more than 30 children and teenagers, a few of whom were found to have been bound, beaten or branded with a heated object, according to the report addressed to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and published late on Saturday.
Women reported sexual assault by the captors, including at gunpoint. Men were beaten, starved, branded, held bound in isolation and denied access to a bathroom, the report said. Some were denied treatment for injuries and medical conditions.
The report did not identify any of the hostages by name or age, to protect their privacy, but some of the descriptions matched those provided by hostages and staff that treated them in interviews with Reuters and other media and a U.N. report.
Hamas has repeatedly denied abuse of the 251 hostages abducted from Israel during its Oct. 7, 2023 assault. About half of the 100 hostages still held in Gaza are believed by Israeli authorities to still be alive.
A fresh bid to secure a Gaza ceasefire including a hostage deal has gained momentum in recent weeks, although no breakthrough has been reported as yet.
The war began with Hamas’ October 2023 attack, in which 1,200 people were killed, most of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel’s subsequent campaign against Hamas has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Palestinian health officials, displaced nearly all of Gaza’s population and reduced much of its territory to rubble.
Israeli authorities are investigating allegations of abuse against Palestinian detainees arrested during the war.
(Editing by James Mackenzie and William Maclean)
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